Susan Haycroft

I do not work on the weekend.

I first began my formal training in psychotherapy in 1997, after an initial career in teaching, but believing in the potential in everyone and a real genuine curiosity about people, in all their forms and how they work, has been a part of me from way before 1997.

My hope  in therapy is that you will feel accompanied, seen, held and understood. I believe that moments such as these can be life changing. To have the felt sense of a supporting Other allows us more and more to grow into Core Selves, the people we were always meant to be.

Many situations in this ever changing world provide obstacles or challenges, or even seeming road blocks, to our health and wellbeing. I believe we are meant to be a unified system of mind body and soul but if one part is suffering or under undue stress then the whole structure struggles. I will happily work with any of these three parts in order to help try and restore unity and so thinking, meaning making, emotions and spirituality will all be welcomed with equality and respect.

As accepted theory now agrees therapy works best when there is willingness, curiosity and commitment on both parts with the nature of the therapeutic relationship being fundamental to growth, change and healing. My hope is that we will be able to establish a relationship built on safety and trust, of openness, connection, respect and warmth.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and righting there is a field. I'll meet you there" Rumi.

I have both an inperson and online practice. On initial meeting, usually by email, we would agree a suitable day and time to begin to get to know each other. This would be a full hour session with the option of a further half hour. On completion of this I ask that you spend some time feeling in to how you thought the session went and whether you feel we would be a good fit relationally. If you would like to continue working together I ask that you would commit to three sessions so that we can go a little deeper into the work. After the three sessions we would review what we both thought would be best: with the option of stopping, carrying forward with a limited amount of sessions or working more open endedly.

My main channel of interest would be the emotional. Understanding our past history, our hidden processes or patterns, our present day circumstances, are all important but it is when we fully experience our emotions with Another that real active change can happen.  We can discover another way to tell our own stories when we listen to the various parts within us who have never had a voice and it is here that our bodies and our younger selves have much to teach us.

This way of working is informed by Attachment theorists such as Bowlby and Winnicot and psychoanalytic theorists such as Jung and Bion but brought into the present day by the work of Diana Fosha in AEDP (Accelerated, Experiential, Dynamic,  Psychotherapy) and SueAnne Pilliero in CSRT (Core Self Recovery Therapy)

Theory has its place but each person has their own unique way of being in the world. That is what makes this work such a privilege when we honour what courage it takes to engage in therapy.

The first session will always be nerve wracking as anything is when it is new. My hope is that you will be able to tell your story in whichever way you would like to tell it. I hope to provide you with a space that enables you to feel safe in that telling so that the telling is less nerve wracking.  If it becomes difficult I might ask some questions to help with focus or safety, but my main aim is to listen and feel. I will reflect back from time to time to check that I have heard and understood correctly. Through active listening I hope our relationship will grow and you will come to see yourself more and more.